Foreign pilots are facing fresh restrictions on flying in
Indonesia as the government has issued a regulation banning them from working
for more than two years so that airlines must recruit unemployed local pilots.
The regulation, issued recently in the form of an
official letter from the Transportation Ministry’s Directorate General for Air
Transportation, became effective on Sept. 23. It made exceptions for foreign
pilots with special skills, such as instructors, helicopter pilots and pilots
operating in remote areas.
“We have a lot of unemployed local pilots. There is a
large aspect of nationalism in this as it is about utilizing our own human
resources,” the ministry’s airworthiness and operations director Mohammad Alwi
said recently, although foreign pilots only account for 10 percent of the total
number of pilots working in Indonesia.
Read more on
www.thejakartapost.com